


rose colored glasses (complete with thorns)

by Indigotuesday



Series: nerds hugging [3]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Gen, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:30:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indigotuesday/pseuds/Indigotuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan and Grantaire live together, rarely sleep, have very maudlin hypothetical discussions, and cuddle</p>
            </blockquote>





	rose colored glasses (complete with thorns)

Living with Jehan is made up of 4 am dance parties in the kitchen when neither can sleep, of coming home and finding their living room taken over by an elaborately constructed blanket fort, of not seeing each other at all one week and then spending every second together riding off each other’s inspiration the next.

Jehan has periods of mania in which he barely sleeps at all but churns out enough poetry to cover their couch and coffee table completely in scribbled on pieces of paper, like it has snowed. His lows are all the more crushing in comparison - his limbs turn to lead and he swears he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed if Byron reincarnated asked him out for coffee and a chat.

Grantaire draws Jehan a lot because, hey, handy live in model. When he’s up Jehan will take the drawings and kiss him on the cheek in thanks, hang them on the fridge with drawings of their other friends like a proud parent. When he’s down, Grantaire takes longer to draw him, trying to capture every little detail and cheer him up. He’ll hand Jehan the drawing and Jehan will look at it for a very long time, then shove it back into Grantaire’s hands. “no,” Jehan will say, voice rough because he hasn’t been speaking. “no, draw me for real. stop it, you’re lying, draw me the way I really look.”

The thing is, and sometimes this makes Grantaire feel horrible about himself but it’s something Jehan usually loves about him, Grantaire thinks literally everyone is gorgeous. He gets confused when he hears people talk about someone being ugly because he thinks everyone he sees is beautiful, and not even in a cliched beauty on the inside kind of way. When he looks around on the bus, he notices how much he loves crooked noses and love handles, acne scars and millions of freckles, frizzy hair and small eyes. When he’s out, he looks around and he just wants to draw.

Sometimes this gets twisted, like depression twists everything, and he starts to think about everyone but him is just about the prettiest person he’s ever seen. He never has a bit of doubt about how absolutely beautiful Jehan is, everyone must be able to see that. Everyone but Jehan himself.

“I wish we could switch eyes,” Jehan tells him, one night. They are sitting together on the couch with a movie going in the background, Grantaire sketching and Jehan watching him sketch. Jehan takes a pencil off the coffee table and sketches out a rough caricature on the edge of Grantaire’s page: himself, holding his hands forward in offering, eye sockets empty black and an eyeball in each hand. Grantaire moves his pencil from the sketch of Feuilly he’s working on to Jehan’s drawing, adding in shadows and going over the lines. They do that sometimes, work on bits together - Jehan likes to turn the notes Grantaire leaves him on the counter into sets of couplets.

“Why?” Grantaire asks, “It would look quite neat though.” He imagines his own eyes, such bright green that they seem to cast a sickly glow on his too pale skin, framed by Jehan’s dark skin and long lashes. The timed coffee maker comes to life behind them, a calming regular drip. They both like to drink coffee just when the sun starts to drop in the sky because they usually won’t be asleep for hours. Grantaire watches Jehan out of the corner of his eye and waits for his answer. There are clouds skittering past the window in the stiff wind that’s been their excuse for staying inside all day. Grantaire carefully erases the dark smudges Jehan had filled in his drawing-self’s eyes with and begins to replace them with giant rose blooms.

“Because,” Jehan says, resuming his sentence. “Because I want to see me the way you see me. And I want you to see yourself the same way I see you. Darling, you’re gorgeous. All the time.”

Grantaire knows that his heavy brow, pot belly, translucent skin, and permanent frown meet no one’s standard of male beauty. “If you say so,” Grantiare says with a deliberate, wry chuckle.

“I do,” Jehan says, like it’s a fact. “Maybe you could see it too, if we could trade eyes. And then I would believe the way you drew me. It’d be good.” A lot of people try to get out of this kind of hypothetical, maudlin conversation with Jehan by changing the subject. Grantaire thinks that one of the most intriguing things about Jehan is the weird paths he’ll lead you down, if you let him.

“What if you woke up with someone else’s eyes? Just another random person. Would things look different? You know, like that cliche about whether or not colors looking the same,” Grantaire says. Jehan is making his serious thinking face, which is halfway between serious and joking, his lips pouty and eyes fluttering closed. He carefully takes Grantaire’s pencil and sketchbook out of his hands and puts them aside on the coffee table. Grantaire looks at him questioningly, but keeps his limbs pliant when Jehan puts his hands on Grantaire’s shoulders and pushes him flat on the couch.

It’s chilly in their apartment, because Grantaire is like an old man when it comes to heat and is always telling everyone to put on more layers. Jehan crawls up over Grantaire and lays down on top of him. His head fits perfectly in the hollow of Grantaire’s collarbone, tucked under his chin, face turned into his chest. Grantaire brings his hand up to cup the back of Jehan’s head and wraps his other arm around Jehan’s waist. Jehan cuddles in closer, curls a hand in next to his mouth (he’s almost broken his thumb sucking habit, but he always sleeps like he’s just about to.)

Jehan is still talking, mumbling directly into Grantaire’s chest. With some very careful listening, Grantaire manages to decipher - “are the same things that are all weird and fascinating to you,” he interrupts himself with a giant yawn. “are they the same things for everybody else?” He nuzzles against Grantaire’s chest and yawns again, his weird little baby lion yawn that makes his mouth go as wide as half his face. He’s taller than Grantaire but he has a talent for curling himself up smaller for cuddling convenience.

“Did you sleep last night?” Grantaire asks.

“nuh-uh,” Jehan huffs.

“Are you going to sleep tonight?”

“Hope so. you ‘kay here, doll?” Jehan’s words are sleepy slurred and the warm rhythm of his breath is getting slower, longer, more regular.

“Yeah, hon, we’re okay.” Grantaire chuckles at him a little, Jehan always crashes fast and hard. He rubs big circles on Jehan’s back until he’s well and truly asleep. They lay there for hours, Grantaire watching dumb infomercials and Jehan asleep in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at nevernotfloral for more cuddling-based nonsense!
> 
> if you are interested in the 'seeing colors the same' thing you should check out the episode of the podcast 99 percent invisible entitled "colors"


End file.
